I see piles of term papers like this student's every spring semester. They can't comprehend how one subject fits into another, much less how to support anything they write with, you know, properly-sourced factual information. And numbers? It is to laugh.

But at least I'm not forced to assess my students with multiple-choice exams. That's something.

I remember something like that in one of the last courses I taught. I gave a quiz or an exam and some of the students were whining that I was penalizing them for math errors, even though math wasn't the main subject. Their gripe was along the lines of: "We were already tested on this in another course, so why are we being tested on it again?"

They didn't like my reply. I told them that they may have already demonstrated proficiency in math elsewhere, but my course was where those concepts were being applied. In industry, a math error is just as bad as, say, using the wrong equation when designing something. Somehow, they didn't seem to make the connection.

Brilliant! I don't know enough about the common core standards to know if they are, indeed, the answer, but this describes the problem (especially the frustrations of trying to introduce students who are even halfway through college to a genre with which they are not already familiar) all too well.

Krabby Kathy, this is great. I played it for my high-school-age son, and he knew immediately what "I choose C" meant even before the video started. His teachers have told him the same thing. He also cracked up about the persuasive essay topics.

Hey, Kathy, did you write and set up this video? If so, would you be interested in collaborating on another one? I can write the script but don't have an Xtranormal account or experience. Also, this video went beyond others with gestures like the student's shrug and details like the screen on the laptop.

The dialogue would come straight from a series of facepalm conversations with my biggest drama-queen snowflake of the academic year. It culminated today with -- Wait. I'm saving that for the video.

What Was This?

College Misery was a dysfunctional group blog where professors got the chance to release some of the frustration that built up while tending to student snowflakes, helicopter parents, money mad Deans, envious colleagues, and churlish chairpeople.

Our parent site, Rate Your Students, started in 2005, and we continued that mission beginning in 2010. Ben at Academic Water Torture and Kimmie at The Apoplectic Mizery Maker both ran support blogs during periods when this blog had died.